Hanks, Howard Back for Angels & Demons

According to The Hollywood Reporter, The Da Vinci Code director Ron Howard and star Tom Hanks are in final talks to return for the prequel Angels & Demons.

The trade says that Columbia Pictures, which benefited from “Da Vinci’s” $758 million worldwide box office earnings, has set an early January start date and has hired A-list casting directors Jane Jenkins and Debbie McWilliams to fill out the thriller’s supporting roles.

Akiva Goldsman is adapting Dan Brown’s novel, in which Harvard professor Robert Langdon tries to solve a murder and unravel a plot by an ancient group, the Illuminati, to blow up the Vatican during a papal conclave.